Frozen Window
by @mysticravenA shy literature student is forced to share a dorm with Adrian Vale—the older hockey captain who brings a different girl back every weekend. After a brutal winter argument, Adrian pins Elias against the frozen dorm window and kisses him while snow falls outside. By the end of the semester, they stop pretending they are just roommates.
MEET THE CHARACTERS
Elias Voss
A 19-year-old literature student with ink-stained fingers and storm-gray eyes that seem to hold entire unwritten poems. He has the kind of quiet beauty that goes unnoticed until you catch him reading in the corner of a library—then it becomes impossible to look away. Thin-shouldered from years hunched over books, with chestnut hair that falls into his face when he's nervous, which is most of the time.
Adrian Vale
A 21-year-old hockey captain built like a weapon—broad shoulders, thick thighs, hands that have broken bones on the ice but tremble when they accidentally brush Elias in the dark. He has sharp blue eyes that seem to cut through everyone except the one person he actually wants to see. Dark hair perpetually messy, jaw perpetually clenched, the kind of handsome that's dangerous because he knows exactly what it can get him—until it can't get him Elias.
EXPLORE CHAPTERS
First Night Fall
Elias pushes the door open and freezes. Adrian is shirtless on the lower bunk, towel slung over his shoulder, skin still damp from the shower. Hockey-built. Blue eyes cutting through the dim light. 'You're Voss?' Elias nods, throat dry. Adrian's gaze drags over him—slow, deliberate—then he smirks and looks away. Elias's hands shake as he drops his bag. The room is too small. The air is too thick. He can still smell Adrian's soap. His pulse won't settle.
First Touch
The lamp clicked off and the room went dark, but Elias couldn't move. He lay stiff in his cold sheets, every nerve attuned to the other body three feet away. Adrian's breathing had changed—shallow, uneven, like he was holding something back. Then a whisper, barely audible: 'Elias.' His name, spoken like a wound. Elias's heart stopped. He didn't answer. The mattress creaked. A hand found his in the dark—rough, warm, trembling. Adrian's fingers intertwined with his, and the world collapsed into that single point of contact. The radiator hissed. Snow began to fall past the window, silent and endless.
The Threshold Breaks
Adrian closes the distance, but when his lips meet Elias's, it's not rough like the hockey captain Elias expected—it's trembling, almost reverent, like he's asking permission even after crossing the line. Elias feels the wetness on Adrian's cheek before he understands it, and his own hands come up to hold him, not to pull him closer but to keep him from falling apart. The kiss deepens, and Elias realizes Adrian isn't taking—he's giving, offering something he's never given anyone, and Elias has to decide if he's brave enough to accept it.
Letters on Skin
I shift, sliding my palm beneath the hem of his shirt, feeling the heat of his skin and the tremor that runs through him at the contact. He watches me with those sharp blue eyes gone dark and uncertain, and I begin to trace—A, D, R, I, A, N—each letter pressed into the space above his heart. His breath stutters, his hand gripping my shoulder hard enough to bruise, and I feel the wordless thing he's trying to say in the way his body arches toward mine. When I lean down and press my lips to the last letter, he makes a sound I've never heard from him—broken and raw and utterly surrendered.
Salt and Ink
Adrian's hand traces the waistband of Elias's jeans with excruciating patience, his thumb dipping just beneath the fabric to find the sharp jut of hipbone, the soft skin there. Elias arches into the touch before he can stop himself, a broken sound escaping his throat, and Adrian watches him like he's memorizing every tremor. The air thickens with the heat of their bodies, the radiator ticking in the corner, snow still falling silent against the glass. Elias's fingers find the hem of Adrian's shirt, tugging upward with trembling hands, and the first bare inch of skin reveals a scar—pale, jagged, running along his ribs like a secret mapped in flesh. Adrian goes still, his breath catching, and Elias presses his lips to the scar before he can think, tasting salt and the faint memory of ice, and feels the shudder that runs through Adrian's whole body.